Merentha was started in the spring of 1996 as part of 3 seperate muds
which ran on the same server. The purpose was to gain general knowledge
of LPC (the language LPMUDs are coded in) and to develope three distinctly
different themes amoung the three MUDs.

The three MUDs were Vamperic
Encounters, Forgotten Paradigm and Merentha. As the
name would suggest, VE was suppose to have a vampire theme,
FP was suppose to be a general midevil theme with dwarfs, elves and
other races, and Merentha was supposed to be based on a book.

Due to problems, VE and FP left the server they were on and
found hosts elsewhere. Since that time VE has ceased to exist and
FP is now under development on a server in the Netherlands.

In
the beginning the work on Merentha was very slow, it was basiclly stagnant
in the development of all areas and the lib itself. The few immortals
that were there were either there out of boredom, or becasue they wanted
to have a mud where they could be god and powertrip. The lib itself was
nothing more then the default Nightmare Lib, which although very good,
lacks in many aspects which are available in most muds, and the areas
which existed were very poorly writen, monsters being highly unbalanced
and descriptions which could have been writen better by a 5 year old.

That was until Petrarch came along. As his first coding experiance on a
MUD he had many ideas and his first project was to create an underwater
city. Along with this work he also coded balloons which people could own
and pilot around, along with horses to be ridden, and started working on
hundreds of new spells and skills.

Slowly the world of Merentha begain
to take form. Not as it was originally planned to however,the theme had
switched to one simular to FP. Immortals who once coded there but
had left due to 'politics' soon begain returning and asking for their
positions back seeing now that the MUD was actully improving.

While
Petrarch focused his attention on lib work, other immortals showed up to
take care of areas. One great coder we have is Feyr. His areas were
extreamly well writen and had a great story line behind them. His parents
took a great intrest in the work he did and wanted to create too. They
were both given immortal positions and the two of them created
Xenora and Hiemelia, two of the Kingdoms in the game.

Another Immortal, Jewel, created the Kingdom of Jewels which is equally
impressive in its size and complexity.

Among our main coding staff we
have, 2 mothers, 1 father and 2 students. This gives us a great insite
for coding from the ages of 16 to 40. The more mature of out wizzes make
sure we have such policies such as swearing and a general goodnatureness
which they would like on a mud where their children will play, plus they
give an insite as to what their own peers would like to see.

There are
several other immortals who's insites are also just as well welcome,
although their contributions have been less they are none the less
important.

Together the Merentha immortals form a family which I am
proud to be a part of. Together we make sure Merentha becomes greater
then the sum of its parts, we make sure its a mud that children and adults
can both play and get along on and more importantly, have fun.